Keep Calm: The Truth About The Huge Solar Flare That Just Missed Earth

Eric Mack
, ContributorI cover science and innovation and products and policies they create.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Last night, a friend asked me if I had written about the huge solar flare that nearly converted all of us to an Amish lifestyle. It was a story I was familiar with, but I thought it was old news. After all, the huge Coronal Mass Ejection that could have wreaked havoc on our electric grid and other infrastructure had Earth been in its path actually occurred in 2012, and had been thoroughly covered here on Forbes and elsewhere months ago.

Um... what? Continue beyond the blatantly wrong headlines on these, and you'll typically find the real story, which does not involve an extinction-level planet baking that we just missed. A near total collapse of all infrastructure that relies on the electrical grid was the real threat, but surely there's a big gap on the continuum of possible space weather-caused catastrophes between losing electricity and the complete destruction of the planet. (Insert snarky discussion of whether life is worth living without
Twitter here.)

For all the details on the big solar flare that almost imposed a global moratorium on selfie-sharing, check out Brid-Aine Parnell's post from back in March, when the researchers who studied the solar storm originally published their findings. That's right, NASA hasn't been withholding the details of this near disaster, they've been out there for some time now.

EV Lacertae (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What seems to be going on here is that NASA put out a press release on Wednesday rehashing the details of the 2012 flare and the research that's been dripping out over the past year. It's actually a great primer on space weather and the potential damage that can be done by huge coronal mass ejections, including the last time the planet was actually in the firing line. That happened over 150 years ago. By the way, that event -- known as the Carrington event -- did not vaporize any people, animals or planets, but it did do damage to telegraph lines and create some epic northern lights as far south as Tahiti.

There's no new information in the press release, so it doesn't qualify as a revelation of a vast conspiracy to cover up the fact that the storyline of that terrible Nicolas Cage movie about a solar flare is real.

So, no, life on Earth did not nearly end in mid-2012, and NASA hasn't been keeping it a secret, but it would probably be a good idea to work up some infrastructure contingency plans should we actually come in contact with a big solar flare sometime soon. And it would also be nice if everyone actually researched and read the stories they're writing headlines for.

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